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Empire Strikes Back
Kirby's Korner · December 3, 1999

I knew I would receive e-mail on my latest column. I didn't expect the number I received -- or the vehemence of some of the comments.

Last week, I argued that the plan by four airlines to create an online agency Web site is good for consumers because it will provide major competition to Expedia.com and Travelocity.com once Preview Travel is absorbed by Travelocity. I said the airlines -- Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines, and United Airlines -- announced the venture to make money, not to screw over brick-and-mortar agencies or to bypass the Global Distribution Systems.

Several agents disagreed, some respectfully and some not so respectfully. I'll tackle the general themes of the comments this week, and next week I'll get to the specifics. (Hey, it'll be a holiday weekend! Even freelance writers need an occasional slack day!)

It's not too late to let me have your response. You can reach me at the e-mail address below.

But first, the bad news.

The GDS Galileo International just announced it, too, will create an online agency consumer Web site, reversing a position it has taken for years against competing with the brick-and-mortar agents that use its services. If you don't like the four-airline proposal, and you don't like Travelocity, you'll hate this move.

If you're a consumer, this move -- like last week's announcement -- increases choice and competition.

And the news gets worse for travel agents. British Airways said it may well eliminate commissions, replacing them with service fees. This looks like the expansion of an earlier BA experiment, in which it paid travel agents a sliding-scale commission based on the amount of travel the agents booked with the carrier.

With all the changes occurring in the travel business, it's no wonder agents are angry and uncomfortable. But some of their comments show they're picking the wrong fights.

One theme that came through clearly in the e-mails I received is that I, everyone else at Ticked.com, and most of the members of the media have a vendetta against travel agents. I don't know what "the media" is, so I'll leave it to the likes of Sam Donaldson and Matt Drudge to defend against that charge.

As for Ticked.com, the focus of this site is on helping travelers. If that means bashing an airline one week and a travel agency the next, so be it. But the writers on the site clearly are not anti-agent, as columns just this week from Chris Elliott and Charlie Leocha show. (And, no, they weren't written as pre-emptive strikes. We're not organized enough here for that!)

Indeed, the first, second, and third columns I wrote for Ticked.com expressed sympathy for agents, even as I chided them for not seeing the potential of the Internet.

It's safe to say of the Ticked.com attitude about agencies: if they do nothing but process tickets, they're not toast yet, but the butter's getting to room temperature. If they can bring an added value to a traveler, they'll be in business long after we're all talking to our computers and using cable modems.

We may be talking to them through the Internet, and they may not need a storefront, but they'll be in business.

A related theme apparent in many of the comments: agents are professionals, and few people appreciate what they do. As one person said, "Travel agents do more than just issue tickets, they give advice, and in any other industry (i.e., accounting, law, etc.), at least they get paid a decent wage to do so!"

This raises the largest problem I see facing agents in coming years, on or off the Web. They need to decide who they are agents for. Lawyers and accountants receive fees from their clients; retailers receive inventory through distributors from manufacturers, who cannot, in the United States, legally set the price at which the inventory is sold. Only if the retailers are the manufacturers' agents is a strict pricing structure permissible.

So do agents work for me or the airlines?

Are agents willing to become true professionals, dispensing advice and buying inventory that they sell at a mark up? A less drastic alternative: Will they forego commissions and overrides from airlines, relying on travelers for their income based on service and price?

These are the types of troubling issues agents, consumers, and travel suppliers must resolve. Not whether another airline built yet another Web site.

David Kirby is the editor of the Interactive Travel Report. His column appears on Friday. You can reach him at david@ticked.com.